


Best damn pilot ever took to the skies

by cynthia_arrow (thesilverarrow)



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Firefly
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Post-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 00:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3402257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverarrow/pseuds/cynthia_arrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You gonna stick with this?" he asked her. "With Raptor, I mean. Once we're done being nuggets."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Not if I can help it."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best damn pilot ever took to the skies

**Author's Note:**

> Comment fic, reposted from livejournal. Assume spoilers for season three of BSG and the Serenity movie.

They only found her because she got in a fist fight with one too many fellow miners aboard the Majahual and the frustrated captain of that vessel (who wanted to keep her but didn't know what to do with her) finally kicked her to the Galactica. It was a good damn thing; the woman was tough enough to be a miner or even a marine, but she was meant to fly.

She had no trouble saying sir. If she had, Sam wouldn't have been able to share air with her. If she'd been short and blonde and possessed of a quick wit and an even quicker grin, he might've refused to train with her. But she was tall and dark and quiet; quietly sardonic, too, if one could get her to say anything that wasn't strictly required for her job. So she sat behind him, his ECO in the sims as long as he was pretending to fly a raptor, and he didn't hate her. Didn't really know her either, but he assumed that was the point. 

By day four, they were bored out of their frakkin' minds. He couldn't imagine actually flying a raptor would be any less dull; there would just be more mindless flying and data collection.

"You gonna stick with this?" he asked her. "With Raptor, I mean. Once we're done being nuggets."

"Not if I can help it," she said in that thick, soft murmur of hers as she concentrated on the screen in front of her. 

"Man, I can't wait to blow shit up."

"Should try being a miner, Anders. Lots of C-4."

"Then why'd you try so hard to get your ass tossed in the brig?"

"Tired of making the shit that makes vipers. Thought I'd like to see one up close instead. Didn't think I'd get the chance to fly one. Not that I'm complaining. Be nice to take out some toasters."

"I can understand that."

"I bet you can." He didn't hear her take a deep breath or anything, but he could feel how she was pondering saying something else. Finally, she did, just as casually as she ever said anything: "Word has it you were one of the resistance leaders on New Cap."

"I was."

"Wish I'd been there with you guys."

"Coulda used your eyes. And your aim."

"Coulda used you, too," she said. "Not a lot of fighting to be done from inside a detention cell."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not. I'm alive, and I've learned a whole lotta patience the hard way. They'll get what's coming to them."

He almost didn't ask, but he couldn't not. He could never get enough stories of those who never made it off the planet. It seemed like he never knew so many of them, never saved them the way he finally did Kara. Once, anyway.

"Who did you lose?" he asked.

Her eyes were still focused on the screen, so he could only see her in profile—enough, anyway, to know she wasn't going to show any of it, that dark, angry thing inside her. He hoped like hell with a little more time he could be just that stoic, focused. 

She said, "Best damn pilot ever took to the skies. Love of my life."

As Sam nodded, his throat squeezed up, went dry, until he had to cough, and it brought tears to his eyes. He kicked the hell out of the chair beside him.

"I frakkin' hate this recon bullshit. This playing at recon bullshit."

Calm as ever, she said, "I hear we're switching to viper sims session after next."

It was amazing how that loosened something in his chest. He could hear the hope in her voice, too.

He said, "Think you can outdo me on kills?"

A strange, formidable smile curled up her lips, and her voice was warm when she said, "Way I see it, I'm behind you right now, but I'll catch you."

Grinning, because a smile hurt better than a scowl; challenging, because to fight was better than to give up, he said, "Well, Washburn, you can sure as frak try, anyway."


End file.
